Bill Ackman has a diagnosis for why it’s so expensive to live in New York City, and it isn’t capitalism — it’s City Hall.
In a wide-ranging interview with Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell for the Fortune 500 Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast series, the Pershing Square CEO argued that New York’s affordability crisis is a policy failure, not a market one — and that Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rent-freeze agenda is actively making things worse.
“Let’s use New York City as a microcosm, starting with the cost of housing,” Ackman told Fortune. “It’s so high because left-wing mayors have made it very difficult for developers to build here, and Mamdani, by freezing rents, is just going to make the problem worse.”
The comments land months after Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, took office and delivered on a signature campaign promise: in June, New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board voted 7-1 to freeze rents on one- and two-year leases for nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments — the first such freeze on two-year leases in the city’s history. Mamdani called the vote “a historic victory for New York City tenants.” Ackman sees it differently.
A market split down the middle
